Tag: DEA

Once again, the DEA has made a decision that will likely lead to more harm than good. The move to regulate Mitragyna speciosa (kratom) and its active alkaloids, mitragynine (MG) and 7-hydroxymitragynine (7HMG), as Schedule I substances is just one addition to a long list of poor policy decisions with little basis in science. Schedule I drugs are defined as

Read more

Written by CUNY Baruch SSDP Chapter Leader Leland Radovanovic, This article originally appeared on The Odyssey Online.  On Thursday, August 18th, the Deputy Attorney of the Department of Justice, General Sally Yates, released a memo detailing their plan to roll back the use of private prisons. Through DOJ studies, they found that private prisons are not kept to same standards

Read more

This week, we asked you to contact your Representatives regarding three historic amendments to the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act: the first to prohibit the DEA from using funds to target legal medical marijuana patients, and another to remove barriers to the cultivation of industrial hemp in states where it is legal. Your action made a difference: last

Read more

The New York Times revealed on September 1 that the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP)  — the same folks who brought us ads about marijuana users eating their own fists and other reefer madness messages — has secretly run a program that provides vast access to phone data records spanning a 26 year period. The program offers

Read more

This article originally published at the-libertarian.co.uk. The National Institute on Drug Abuse has never exactly had the reputation of an unbiased authority on drug use, and this is not simply because of its name. As CNN’s Sanjay Gupta recently pointed out, the agency is responsible for approving every scientific study on marijuana, and 94% of current studies deal ostensibly with the drug’s

Read more

This blog post originally appeared at http://the-libertarian.co.uk. It is perhaps common knowledge that marijuana, though not legally available for recreational use, is now widely used for medical purposes. Twenty US states have signed effective medical marijuana measures into law, as well as the District of Columbia, along with a variety of other nations including Canada, Austria and the Czech Republic. The

Read more

              Today, the Drug Enforcement Administration published this press release commending Congress on passing an amendment to the the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act that bans a host of chemical compounds. I wouldn’t exactly call it innovative, but rather more of the same failed ideology that we have come to expect

Read more

Daniel Chong, a 23 year old University of California San Diego student, was detained by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and then left for dead for five days without food or water. On April 21, Daniel was smoking marijuana with friends when DEA agents suddenly burst through the door of his friend’s apartment with guns drawn. Daniel was detained and

Read more

Last week the American Medical Association (AMA) announced its support of removing marijuana from Schedule I status. The AMA has refused to budge on this for a long time now, and opponents of marijuana law reform often cite the organization’s stance in their argument that pot prohibition is a good thing. The DEA hasn’t made a stink about the announcement but I

Read more

The DEA has continued to raid medical marijuana dispensaries in California since President Obama took office. We know Obama has stated the he does not support using justice department resources to undermine state law on this issue. Yet the DEA continues to waste these resources on law abiding, tax paying dispensaries. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

Read more